Abstract
Romantic comedies have long been understood to create unrealistic views of relationships. In the current study, we tested theory-driven corrective strategies for counteracting potentially harmful beliefs about romantic relationships. In an online experiment ( N = 626), participants were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: to a no exposure control, to watch a romantic comedy scene without correction, to read a corrective article before viewing, or to read a corrective article before viewing and complete a counterarguing exercise after viewing. Results showed that both corrective treatments significantly reduced romantic belief endorsement. We also investigated narrative engagement factors as mediators of these effects. Media enjoyment, realism of specific scenes, and overall movie realism each mediated the effect of corrections on romantic belief endorsement. Our findings suggest theory-driven corrective strategies are effective for reducing idealistic beliefs associated with entertainment media and highlight key persuasive variables for future interventions.
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